Those low lead in notes add a whole new dimension to the tune & I think that 2nd ending is the clare way of playing it. I glued this setting together from various players I think this tune sounds best very slow & lilted heavily, when I hear people rip through it fast & straight it makes me wince.

Which setting is most original?

Looking for a setting of this jig is how I found this site but I’m curious about the tune. I heard it first as played by Kevin Burke on the Celtic Fiddle Festival. This is quite different. The A and B parts are switched around and he (Kevin Burke) plays it with an f natural rather than f sharp. I love this jig because you get to employ all kinds of lovely ornamentation… especially downward slides and open string rolls. I am curious though… have I learned it all wrong? You certainly couldn’t play the two versions at the same time.

I got this tune from Bill McNamara a flute player from Quilty and Zina’s setting is the common Clare setting as handed down from Willy Clancy, whose father Gilbert got it from Garret Barry. The F naturals are probably a modern addition. I have heard Keiran & Niall Crehan play the F version though I didn’t ask them where they got it from.
BTW I wouldn’t consider downward slides as practised by Kevin Burke to be traditional.. in fact they make my teeth itch!

Sorry about the itchy teeth. :) My fiddle teacher was searching for something that she could employ downward slides as she had heard someone in a workshop use them. When I heard this tune, I thought of her quest. Am I right in remembering that Garrett Barry was a piper? I imagine downward slides would be a bit difficult on pipes.

Yup, he was a piper right enough, considered one of the great Clare pipers. I believe that he was blind, but haven’t been able to confirm that — in fact, I can’t seem to find out much info about Mr. Barry at all, which is a great shame. (I have heard that Willie Clancy learned a great many tunes from him through Clancy’s father as he was a good friend of the Clancy family and always stopped in with them when traveling through.) I learned this setting from Dirk Mewes, who I think learned it from the Heather Clarke piping tutor, but I could be wrong about that one. We tend to play it relaxed (though at a fair clip) and swingy, usually as the second jig in a set with Dirk starting out with Women of Ireland, into Sliabh Russell.

Key

This tune, despite having one sharp, is not in the key of G, instead it is in D modal, with D, C and G being the most prominent chords. In standard tuning on guitar, drop your low E to D, and keep a finger on the third fret of the B string throughout for a nice droning effect.
AL

If you try doing Bb in crossing, which would be the case if the tune were in D minor, it jars ~ does not sit comfortably… But D Dorian offers an interesting step in a direction the tune can take at times anyway, with the F nats…

Since there was some discussion yesterday at a session re: I Buried My Wife and Danced on Top of Her, I did some research on Mr. Garrett Barry. According to Fiddler’s Companion, he was born in Co. Clare in 1847, died in 1899. He was blinded by malnutrition, but was able to support himself for most of his life playing the pipes, being one of the great pipers. However, he died at the poorhouse in Ennistymon. How sad!

I think there are as many ways to play this tune as there are musicians. It’s very versatile and lends itself to interpretation.
I like to play it on my low G whistle, and that necessitates some interesting inverted octaves.

I would like to note that if you type in "session.org, I Buried My Wife and Danced on Top of Her", you get pages for another jig, other than Frieze Britches and Garrett Barry’s, that seems to have similarities to the aforementioned two.

Garrett Barry’s Jig

I think it’s a plain mistake to call this jig "I Buried My Wife and Danced on Top of Her." There aren’t many similarities between the two tunes.

Several people mentioned the D dorian/minor version of the tune above. Kevin Burke recorded a very nice version in the key on "Eavesdropper." He even plays a hornpipe setting of the tune with Jackie Daly. I will transcribe both jig and hornpipe settings recorded by K. Burke, hopefully in a few days.

Similar tune

Well, Slainte, I’m not sure what to call it. That was the point of the discussion…There was agreement and disagreement that Frieze Britches and Garrett Barry’s had similarities. As I said, if you type in I Buried My Wife and Danced on Top of Her, there seems to be similarities, also. The Girl of the Big House, which you note, also has similarities. I get to wondering, knowing that there are regional interpretations of tunes, if some of these similar tunes are some great musician’s or teacher’s interpretation of a tune that was much played in a particular region.

I have been thinking about this and I think, for the sake of commonality and identification, I would refer to Frieze Britches as just that and Garrett Barry’s as just that. After all, I Buried My Wife and Danced On Top of Her is such a long and unpleasant-sounding title.

It seems both "Garrett Barry’s" and "I Buried My Wife…" are both associated with Garrett Barry, but it doesn’t mean they should share the same title. I believe someone mixed up the two tunes and added the wrong alternative title.

I don’t know if this jig predates Garrett Barry, who died in 1899. "The Girl of the Big House" was first printed in the mid 19th century. These two tunes might have the same origin, but let’s wait for an expert to add more reliable info.

I just listened to samples of Martin Fay playing I Buried My Wife and Danced on Top of Her, not Frieze Britches or Garrett Barry’s. I would consider them to be different tunes altogether. I suppose that might be because of the key in which he plays it, but they are only vaguely similar, if at all.

I would imagine that some information re: Mr. Garrett Barry could be obtained by contacting the Traditional Music Archives at 73 Merrion St., Dublin. They have an incredible wealth of music, recordings, info, etc.

Garrett Barry’s

Tune Name Confusions

Garrett Barry’s jig is, according to Nollaig Casey,
not to be confused with I buried my significant other. In fact, I had confused the two in a conversation and she corrected me.

These two tunes also appear side by side, each with its name, on https://thesession.org/recordings/display/463 (Moreover "I buried etc." is identified as a version of The Frieze Breeches in the inlay to that CD, by Pat Mitchell).